


Reflection on love by a crushing teenager

by lottipoppi



Series: Love in the life of a teenage italian [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Boarding School, England (Country), F/F, F/M, Heartbreak, High School, Hopeful Ending, Italy, Poor Life Choices, Reading, Real Life, Slice of Life, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 02:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2715077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lottipoppi/pseuds/lottipoppi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first of a little series of work my mind created to deal with that horrible, life-altering thing that are *feelings*. It's qui insightful so I hope it's enjoyable nonetheless.<br/>(I mean it, it's fun to read and please comment)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflection on love by a crushing teenager

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise in advance for any grammar mistakes. I am not a native speaker and my text is unbeta'd.  
> Thanks for reading though. :)

How can it be that the minds of so many clever, independent young women can be disrupted so suddenly in their calm rationality by the outrage of one single emotion? Love.   
Mankind cannot yet explain what most human beings come to experience at least once in their short existence, and that is the overpowering force of the strongest of all affections, capable of removing all pragmatism even from the most clever men and women of all time.   
Was not Samson tricked into surrender by his love for the tender graces of Delilah? And did not Pericles defy the Athenian law he himself had created and exposed himself to the public’s critical eye to grant the bundle of life that was his and Aspasia’s son his rightful citizenship?  
Even Nature, who often contradicts the rash behavior of men, has the young lioness give her own life for that of her male and their litter. And again shows bird that – once mated for life as some are inclined to do – would protect the life of the other in spite of their own.   
Disney had one of his wisest characters – Merlin (The sword in the stone) – describe Love as the most powerful force on earth, even stronger than gravity. This had been done rightfully so, in my opinion, given the fact that Love seems to defy even the ever-strong natural law of self-preservation.  
What seems to appall me the most in regards to this phenomenon is – above all things – mankind’s ignorance about its workings. How can a species (blessed with the unique gifts of word and reason) fail to understand what has been an aspect of its daily existence for as long as human written records can preserve?  
Any kind of professional is able to devote – at least in part – their art to the enhanced comprehension of Love. First and foremost (from a most scientifically point of view) are the Chemists and the Biologists who have studied and catalogued the body’s reactions to lust and attraction. The situation is then handed over to anthropologists and psychologists who will usually blame it all on evolution and the need for an offspring. Then the theories of the latter will be bitterly disputed by the philosophers who – as per their usual – will try to find a deeper meaning to the concept, disregarding the simple evolutionary need as the only possible root of the causal chain that leads to Love, since such an explanation would deny men’s free will. Literates will express their whole – hearted agreement by composing odes to the strength of an emotions they will have already experienced (by necessity – that is) and show their deeper understanding of it through a flow of passionate words; each cacophony encapturing their pain and their loss just as much as the sweet melodies of a sonnet will lull their minds into believing impossible idylliums. The musicians will not speak a word, instead they will gently caress the sounds of their instruments and follow the pained scratches left thereafter by love – stricken composers and bring to life painful melodies that fill the listener with the sweet melancholy of longing or the earth-shattering pain of a broken heart. 

To me Love is but an illusion. A helpless fantasy I felt at times but quickly urged my heart to forget in order to free it from the bounds of pain.   
It starts off innocently enough: maybe it’s just sympathy, a very close friendship or strong admiration towards one of my peers… Then THE MOMENT – realizing one’s attraction to such an individual, the increasing lure that their personality eventually constitutes for my psyche and the need to understand these fascinating people better – get closer. The initial label my behavior gets is harmless – a crush. Sometimes (most times in all honesty) the attraction remains confined to just that and never develops into a mind – altering state which is capable of consuming every hour of one’s consciousness. Sometimes (alas, poor me when this is the case) getting closer to someone and seeing their irreparable flaws does not warn me away from my desires and the infatuation gains a deeper level of awareness and becomes pure, unaltered Love.   
Oh, how my heart aches then… I cannot escape what my gullible heart decides for me, and every time it gets worse. My first Love felt heavy like a stone in my heart when I realized what I was feeling. My dear friend (object of my affections) was older than me, more mature, an idol for my young mind and it simply constituted a packet containing all things I considered morally right and desirable at the time. It was a dire mistake. Just a year later I was being drowned with purpose under the unforgiving waves of the Atlantic sea by that same boy who had attempted to steal my heart. It was in hospital – after the doctors told me I survived by less than a minute – that my shattered heart took a decision not to trust any males for quite some time.   
It was only a few years later that I was gazing dreamily at my best friend of ten years next to whom I was playing a four-hands Chopin tune. This was one of Chopin’s most romantic melodies and my mind interpreted it as intention. As me and her hid under the black capes that we had bought together as part of our Harry Potter costumes I glanced at her garments and wondered how she fit them so perfectly. She was lovely in every sense and my mind was already questioning its own judgment in even thinking about describing my first Love as such. But once again my heart was doomed to meet a cruel end. Not fully understanding the concept of bisexuality at the time and being quite scared myself of this alien form of affection, I understandably restrained myself from even trying to initiate anything. At the end of that year I was standing on the door of the music school with a frown of my face and my tearful eyes staring at the smirking figure of what I considered to be my best friend and the one whose affections I most prized standing next to the teacher with a certificate for a four-handed Chopin concert with another girl proudly clutched in her tiny hand. My eviction note had been signed.  
Five years passed before my heart felt comfortable with itself enough to try the dangerous road of Love again. Me and Juan had been friends for quite some while already: he was a Spanish boy (barely fourteen at the time we both met) and a very attractive one at that, we shared many interests (such as science and a great passion for action movies) and we used to hang out in any sort of background – from the empty rows of a Cinema on Tuesday night (English movie night in my town) to the crowded squares of the city center on a Saturday afternoon. Everything seemed to be pointing at a positive development and my heart was leaping with joy as I slowly saw my strong crush develop into something more. There is one thing I had to learn from this particular story: If you want to be with someone you have to be able to trust his or her friends. It was the last day of middle school when all his friends cornered me and had me swear that I would never come near him again (as a friend or as a potential significant other), or else they would isolate him and all of them would leave him. The next day the summer holidays started. I never saw a single one of them again.  
The two years that followed proved to be a real challenge to my usual level of happiness. I found myself devoid of friends, always fighting all my battles alone (or with the support of my family only). Even the staff didn’t find my behavior acceptable and I was sent to the headmistress every time I tried to report an episode of bullying committed by the richest and most popular boy in school. In just a dozen of months my soul hardened into a single shell of hollow sarcasm and empty abrasive comments meant to get everyone but my relatives off my back. Even the two friends who had stood by me through all those challenges started to notice the change.  
I remember very clearly what were the words that I told my mother right before having her leave my boarding room for good at the start of the autumn term:  
“Don’t worry mom, if I DO manage to find myself a boyfriend there is NO WAY he’s going to be English. It’s – like – one in a million chance. You are well aware of the fact I prefer Mediterraneans, right?”  
Famous last words, it seems as if probability is dead set on proving me wrong. Of course he had to be English (well Welsh, really, but there isn’t all that much difference – even though he would probably brain me if he ever heard me say that). What else could the cruel Fate I seem to be destined to have harbor for me? The first official day of school all the IB1 students had been gathered in the main garden outside the dining hall to have tea and biscuits with their Personal Tutors and – at the end of a short meeting – everyone was set free to go and socialize with the rest of the year group. I was standing alone in the middle of the garden with a cup of tea in one hand and using a small white tissue to clean the other from the last crumbles of a chocolate muffin I had allowed myself to eat earlier. I had just been left there by a lovely English family that had invited my stammering self into their conversation to make me feel more included (I was one of the few who didn’t know anyone at all), and I found myself pondering whether it would be wise or not to initiate conversations myself or if I should leave it to other people. Once I finally made up my mind about that matter I simply walked up to the first person I saw who was not already engaged in a conversation and went in front of them to introduce myself. In my haste to make a good impression I temporarily forgot that being thin and having considerably long hair does not necessarily mean someone is a girl. I found myself saying hi (more as an automatic response than as a true conversation starter) to one of the most peculiar boys I ever had the pleasure to meet. I wouldn’t describe him as traditionally handsome because lies are not morally acceptable in one’s confessions to themselves, however his features transpired a sharp intelligence that so far I had only been able to see in adults and – sometimes – myself. He was gazing down at a quite voluminous text, on which he had clearly already made a quite considerable progress, that he was holding expertly in one hand with the ease and naturalness of whom had done so many a time before. Even simply the fact that he was indulging in a clearly engaging read during a social event sparked my interest. This very peculiar boy lifted his head and gave me a very small smile – quite mechanical if I say so myself, of the kind that only people not generally used to very big crowds are able to produce. He said hi back then quickly turned back to his book. I knew better that to force in a conversation an unwilling participant but I do remember hoping – as I left the spot and entered the main building again – that the mysterious boy would be in at least one of my classes when the time for them came and that I could get to know him better.  
Imagine my surprise when – during the orientation games for first years – I saw him get onstage first, during the play devised by the red team, dressed entirely in red with horns and red spray coloring his hair as he completely owned the role of a cheeky devil onstage. Even greater was my surprise when his team appointed him as one of the main authors of the play itself. I could barely believe my own eyes. Could that really be the same shy boy I had seen hiding his face in a book while a garden full of people swarmed with life around him. I was completely flabbergasted.  
The following few days I used to settle into the frantic rhythm that college life while studying for the International Baccalaureate at the same time provided me with. Laundry… Sort the books…. Buy school materials… Prepare for the first day of school…Think about it and consequently freak out… All the usual. The first lesson I had on Monday was Italian, it grounded me, brought me back home for a minute and it seemed to be having the same effect on the rest of the class (teacher included). So imagine how out of my depth I felt when I walked into Math(s) class and there were over fifteen people walking around – frantically grabbing books and already settling down into groups. I sat down next to a nice boy named Vlad (Vladislav, not Vladimir – as he would later point out) and a shy but – as I would find out in the following months – unimaginably clever Bosnian girl named Kate. When I finally got comfortable enough to lift my eyes and turn my gaze to the other half of the room the first person I saw was that same guy in all his curly glory (→ the devil) sitting at the other end of the room chatting with a boy on his left (who had spiked hair, glasses and an orange case in his hand) and holding a different book from the one I saw him reading in the garden in one of his hands – this one was barely started.   
Over the following months I learnt many things about this fascinating lad. First of all his name – Nye – quite unique as well in its own sense, it suited him very well in my opinion. I honestly don’t know anyone else who can so perfectly meld the worlds of science and literature together and make it seem natural. On top of that he – like myself – is passionate about theatre and is good at it (both the analysis of texts and the acting process itself). Now we are both cast in the school’s IB1 play – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – as Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies. I will finally be able to get close to him and know his flaws. Some of them are already transpiring in class but - to my greatest dismay – I have found them nothing but cute. I’m afraid that my heart is once again (after so many years) doomed.


End file.
